Page 10 of Vampire Sins
I pressed my lips into a thin line. He knew just as well as I did that my powers would eventually get the better of me. I craved sex and not just with him, but with poor victims that didn’t deserve to die. “My powers control me,” I whispered. “For once, I want to be the one in control.”
Darkness passed over his gaze, but he understood why I wanted this.
“I won’t ever let you go,” I promised when I glanced at Xavier. “You’ve always said that you were willing to share me.”
His grip ran around my waist and he pulled me close with a sigh. “That’s because I know you don’t have a choice as a succubus. If you’re a vampire, then how am I to know that what feelings you have for me will remain? What if you are trading one dominating power for another?”
I knew what he was asking.
What if Xavier takes you away from me? What if they all take you away from me?
An explosion interrupted our conversation and the walls shook.
“Time to go,” Xavier said. The stiffness of his body as he slung his bag over his shoulder wasn’t just the cold stillness of being a vampire. He was just as conflicted as Luke about where my loyalties might lie. He’d dreamed of me for so long, but even he didn’t know what turning me into a vampire might do. That frightened me.
I followed the vampire as he sped out of the room, his form blurring to his accustomed vampire speed. Fleetingly, I wondered if I’d be able to move like that when I changed.
Xavier paused in the doorway as he waited for Luke and me to follow, looking impatient beneath his tentatively calm visage. I took Luke’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Fear gripped me, not just because I didn’t know what was waiting for us outside, but for the first time, there was a future I wanted, and I desperately hoped that I was going to get it. I wanted my four more than anything. I was tired of being apart. Once we did this, we would be a family.
As if my Blood Stone sensed my desperate need, a warmth spread through my chest. It’d lost the ability to speak to me, but that sentient mind was still there. It spoke to my desires with hopes of its own. When I became a vampire, I’d truly understand the power from which it was born. I’d master a magic I’d been born into, and whether I knew it or not, I’d understand what I was destined for.
Shivering with that distant omen, I walked side by side with Luke, my angel, and followed my vampire out into the streets of supernaturals gone to war.
If I’d thoughtthat Venice had looked intimidating from Xavier’s luxurious apartment, then seeing the mayhem up close and personal gave me the chills. It wasn’t just crazed humans, I realized, but sirens, incubi, and all of Apollo’s army come to kill us.
“Watch out!” Luke shouted and shoved me out of the way just as an incubus bleeding red power blurred behind me. The ground thundered with the force of his body slamming to the ground and he spun on me, snarling and his eyes wild and crazed with lightning red jolts careening across his cheeks.
I’d recognize that power anywhere. My Blood Stone fueled me and gave me a red aura that infused me with strength and resolve, but in the wrong hands, a Blood Stone had a very different effect. Mind control marked the incubus before me, his features distinctive with their beautiful lines and the deadly song of his movements. The seductive allure that wafted from him was a scent I’d recognize in any incubus, yet there was something innately wrong with him. Streaks of red marred his face like poisoned veins.
“Succubus!” he shouted and shoved a finger at me. “For the king!”
“Shit,” I said under my breath and grabbed Luke’s arm. Xavier hadn’t bothered to fight the unfurling army of supernaturals that overwhelmed the city. He blurred through the streets, pausing and waiting for us to follow as impatience made the soft lines go taut at his face.
“This way!” I shouted and yanked Luke towards the vampire.
The incubus wasn’t alone. A siren careened around the corner. When a blade flashed from her hand, the blood drained from my face before Luke yanked me away just in time. He took the blow straight in the gut and groaned as fresh blood pooled around the steel embedded into his stomach. He yanked it out and threw it on the ground, sending it clattering down the cobbled streets before it splashed into a canal. The siren who’d stabbed him opened her mouth to sing, but Luke hauled off and slammed a fist in her face. She crumpled to the ground like a ball of paper.
My fingers shaking, I grabbed Luke and pulled him towards the vampire again. “I hope this bunker is close,” I snapped.
Luke limped and I wanted to stop and make sure he was all right, but I reminded myself that this was the angel that had survived his own heart being ripped out. A stab wound wasn’t going to do him in.
The haze of red continued to swarm the city and blocked off our path. Xavier, two steps ahead of us now, peered up a sheer wall face. “We’ll have to scale it,” he said. “If we touch the fog, I have the feeling that we’ll be put under its spell.”
I considered the three-story building that seemed to tilt to one side as if the ground beneath it had begun to corrode. “I don’t know...”
Before I had a chance to protest, Xavier wrapped an arm around my waist and hoisted me up. “Hold on,” he said, and then he began to climb.
I watched as Luke and the bloodied street retreated as Xavier took me up the wall.
“I’ll get him next,” Xavier promised.
My heart clenched when an incubus flashed another blade and went from Luke’s back. “Look out!” I screeched and shot out a hand. Red power burst from my fingers and shot the incubus down before he had a chance to land the blow.
Luke whirled around and gawked at the supernatural I’d taken out while being carried up a freaking wall.
“It’s the vampire power, darling.” He grinned against my neck and the cool deadliness of his fangs kissed my skin. “Imagine your power when you’re my mate.”
I swallowed hard and realized that his erection was pressing against my abdomen. Xavier wanted me more than anything, and to be in his arms and feel a taste of the power he promised made my insides crave to give in.
